Revealing Whiteness: The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege

Shannon Sullivan
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press (2006)
Reviewed by Crystallee Rene Crain
Reprinted with Permission from Transformative Studies Institute

A Philosophical Invitation for Racial Social Change

Ignoring race and subscribing to the colorblind mentality haven’t proven to alter race relations in the United States. Shannon Sullivan argues in her Revealing Whiteness: The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege, however, that the conscious awareness of white privilege and the notion of colorblindness is not enough to fight the problem.

Revealing Whiteness argues that white people must step away from the colorblindness ideal of anti-racism and move towards a conscious understanding of white identity that promotes equality while also acknowledging and deconstructing privilege. The concept of colorblindness has fueled the subconscious promotion of white purity while removing whiteness from the racial discourse of everyday life; in many cases, white people do not acknowledge that they live with race issues. This habit perpetuates the belief that whites do not constitute a race, thereby implying that their whiteness is irrelevant to racial discourse.

The topic of white privilege and social advantage in western society is not a new one. Sullivan’s work, however, is a study of white America and its relationship with people of color. Her book progresses beyond “unpacking the invisible knapsack.” (McIntosh 1990) McIntosh provided a list of ways to see privilege in our lives with few suggestions on how to change the situation. Sullivan attempts this in her book.  As a professor of philosophy, women’s studies, and African and African-American studies, Sullivan has written mostly on feminism and race issues, focusing on the injustices in American society. In Revealing Whiteness she invites us to take action against racial privilege, whites and non-whites together. 

Sullivan argues that, “Colorblindness is not simply a new strategy in this fight, enabling the ongoing theft of black gifts in the name of anti-racism. It also operates as an unconscious defensive device that allows white people to avoid recognition of themselves as non-white people often see them: as “sheer malevolence.” (127)  I am a mix of African-American and Caucasian ancestry, but I predominantly identify with racial minorities. Based on my experience, I see Sullivan’s arguments as valid and her claims concerning the current state of race relations in America as true. Racial minorities are fighting for equality with a group of people that is partially blind to the injustice that it should actively fight against.

In disputing the current strategy of whites concerning white privilege, Sullivan calls for their personal action. In place of more conversation about how guilty white people feel about being privileged, or a middle-class version of social action, Sullivan pushes for white people to donate money and include people of color in their professional work. “They can, for example, include people of color in their syllabi in substantial ways; give money to groups that support people of color, such as the United Negro College Fund; speak out against incidents of racism when they witness them, in person or via letters to the local newspaper editors; support political candidates who work against white privilege; and so on.” (197)

This analysis draws upon the pragmatist works of W.E.B. Dubois and John Dewey.  Sullivan uses Dubois, a race theorist, and Dewey, a philosopher of society, to articulate the necessity of including people of color in society and the potential faults developing along racial lines about people’s behavior. Sullivan calls for superficial replacements for social action. By superficial I’m referring to her suggestion that all white people have the means to donate money to any organization, let alone the United Negro College Fund. This is a somewhat classist assumption, but Sullivan nonetheless understands that something needs to be done to promote equality.

In 2006, NPR featured a group of privileged white individuals in Los Angeles, CA who are taking appropriate action. “Cameron Levin, one of two founders of Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere in Los Angeles (AWARE-L.A.), has worked extensively in similar organizations where, he felt, white people were taught to rely on blacks in order to do their work on racism. Cameron thinks whites need to do it for themselves.” (Sharp et al., 2006) This is similar to the attitude Sullivan takes towards race relations, and her excavation of her personal habits and privileges is one example of what needs to happen amongst all white people to acknowledge their continued hold on social privilege.

It’s clear that she is inviting us to act for racial social change.  I believe, however, that there needs to be even more discussion on how to transform whites into active allies of people of color.  Her book lacks a compelling list of things to change in white people’s behavior, offering merely suggestions drawn from existing cases.  These tend to be more philosophical and geared towards academics and graduate students rather than those working on the ground in anti-racism work. This is not to discredit such work among academics but to point out the lack of novelty in the suggestions given.

By contrast, her philosophical review of white privilege offers important guidance in understanding one’s position in society and how one can, on an individual basis, change unconscious habits that perpetuate an unequal society.  In chapter one, “Ignorance and Habit,” Sullivan describes what white privilege does to contemporary American society and how it applies to racial minorities and to white people. Interaction between whites and non-whites is a superficial exchange controlled by the dominant culture as a way to get a taste of the unknown and fetishized ‘other’ culture.  Sullivan goes on to explain that it’s no surprise that white privilege is overlooked and underappreciated for its importance to western society’s structure.  “Subconscious habits of white privilege can explain both how white domination is enacted ‘without thinking’ and how a person can be ignorant of her participation in white privilege.” (44)  Throughout the decades of racial segregation and attempts at integration, the growth of white solipsism has been rampant, thus leaving the dominant white culture ignorant about the minority cultures. They largely do not know how they are benefiting from the disfranchisement of the minorities in our society.

An article titled, “Towards a Radical White Identity,” co-authored by Cameron Levin, echoes the ideas and impulses white people should feel after reading this book. “It is in the interest of facilitating change in white people, both those conscious and unconscious of racism, that we do the work we aim to summarize in this article. We address this community because it is our community. We have struggled with the painful realities of racism all around us and have searched for the most effective way to be involved in a movement for change. In our personal journey to come to terms with the realities of racism we have been told time and again by our friends of color that a critical piece of the work is to engage white communities to create change.” (Goldberg & Levin 2002)  Sullivan uses her experiences as a privileged white woman in academic America as an example of how to fight the social injustices that come from inappropriate white privilege. “While racial hatred is not inevitable, it is widespread because of the repression of once openly expressed attitudes of racial disdain.  The so-called advances of civilization over the last century have produced the transformation of white supremacy into white privilege for many white people.”(50) White women have participated in the discourse on race relations and this experience offers some insight into not only the dominance of whites over non-whites, but also the dominance of men over women.

Ruth Frankenberg, author of The Social Construction of Whiteness: White Women, Race Matters (1993), analyzed the construction of whiteness and the development of white anti-racism work. She believed that the structure of whiteness coincides with the structure of dominant culture. Whiteness now is no different than whiteness before because it is a form of general cultural dominance.  The value placed on skin color will tell the story and history of whiteness and societal dominance.

In chapter two, “Engaging the Isolated Unconscious,” Sullivan tackled the unconscious habits of white people in hopes of building bridges among various cultures. She writes, “Recognizing my privilege and not just the ‘natural’ order of things, I am more likely to realize that black people are not responsible for (‘guilty of’) forfeiting their right to psychological and bodily comfort.”  She recognizes, however, that “This realization does not eliminate my racial privilege, nor does it automatically negate the ontological impact of white privilege on my habits.” (51) Sullivan here asks that white people look beyond their historical blame and search for solutions since there is no other culprit of the problem. White people in America may not be consciously aware of their place in the ‘race’ problem, but consciousness has risen to a high enough level for Sullivan to write such a text. Sadly, her words only reach certain ears and only are reciprocated by passions for change or pragmatic action.

This leads to a theme found in chapter three, “Seductive Habits of White Privilege,” where Sullivan talks about the relationship between various points for and against racial minorities. She wrote that “a complex relationship exists between white privileged attempts to eliminate people of color (as people of color), strategies of colorblindness, the allegedly neutral individual, the collapse of racialism and racism, and the claim that all racial distinctions inevitably result in racial hatred.” (61)

White privilege can be defined in many ways. One definition locates social privilege in the pigmentation of skin. In the United States it is white skin that dictates privilege and the oppression of others who are not white. Sullivan explains it as an association of material habits created by a society that embraces a hierarchal standard for individuals and groups. She argues that it is the white skin of people that cause them to live a racially privileged life due to the habits of social preferences given to whiteness. In the next chapter, “Global Habits, Collective Hauntings,” Sullivan analyzes how whiteness has changed and how white privilege affects various groups. In this analysis Sullivan uses Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Mask (1967), and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), to sift through the complexity of “the white race” and race in general. In Sullivan’s reflection on their perspectives, she writes, “For a white person, qua white, the world presents no barriers to her engagement with the world. She might trip over a crack in the sidewalk or be blocked by other people in her way, but she generally is not faced with frightened children who point out her whiteness and thereby transform her from a lived subject into a static object.” (103)

In chapter five, “Appropriate Habits of White Privilege,” Sullivan questions whether contemporary urban gentrification is a form of whiteness taking over inner city communities, for these are mainly populated by racial minorities. This is where she identifies the social consequences of the inappropriate privilege she and other white people experience. She finds an example in Stephen Nathan Haymes’ Race, Culture and the City. “In the context of gentrification or redevelopment, mainstream white consumer culture’s exoticization of the city has meant the development of ‘white pleasure spaces,’ places where mainstream whites, in what were once poor black neighborhoods, indulge in the exotic consumerism of black music, dance, sports, and fashion, with the security of police and electronic surveillance to guard against the dangerous blacks.” (126)

Urban gentrification is a hot topic in the United States, and central in Sullivan’s book. The July 2007 issue of Colorlines magazine, which focuses on race, racism and politics, published an article that researched various areas throughout the country that are affected by whites coming back into cities and reclaiming them. “The implications for poor people of color are clear: Where they were once segregated in abandoned downtowns while whites fled to the suburbs, now they are expected to disperse to the peripheries as cities are taken back.” (Samara and Chang, 2007) The process of re-creating urban life to benefit upper class white America is racist in nature. According to mainstream notions, the city is colored, a place where racial minorities congregate. The process of urban gentrification presupposes that these areas, whatever their economic status, need to be fixed. In contemporary America urban gentrification practically means replacing ordinary, minority, urban lifestyles with a new form of white hipster and new-age lifestyles, for the sake of economic growth. In chapter six, “Race, Space, and Place,” Sullivan expands on the argument that white people take over cities and other geographical areas for economic reasons. “While non-white people often are compelled to live their space in restricted ways, white people tend to manifest a habit of lived spatiality that I call ontological expansiveness. As ontologically expansive, white people consider all spaces as rightfully available for their inhabitation of them.” (144) The struggle by minority races to gain an equitable society is not new, and neither is the struggle for resources, including space.

In the seventh and last chapter, “In Defense of Separatism,” Sullivan writes that the correlation between whites and racial minorities is similar to that between men and women. She uses this analogy to show that understanding the role of men in the struggle for equality for women can help illuminate what needs to happen for whites to understand their role in the struggle for equality for racial minorities. White Americans needs to participate in the struggle for racial justice.  Sullivan explains that DuBois knew that the unconscious habits of white people were at the root of racism. This realization about racial habits explains the unconscious possessiveness of their privilege that white Americans feel about their experience.  Acknowledging privilege can create a white identity that can, in turn, be used either to create equality, or to perpetuate the cycle of entitlement that argues against removing the privilege that they believe they had no part in creating. The latter habit of racial privilege has created an unstable infrastructure for white anti-racism work to take place on a large scale.

Sullivan invites us all to partake in the fight against racism and a racist society. She uses herself as an example of how white Americans can incorporate new habits of racial privilege that promote equality. I do believe that anti-racism work goes beyond writing philosophically or academically.  We should always encourage and expect direct action from white and non-white people around the world.

References

Frankenberg, Ruth. (1993) The Social Construction of Whiteness: White Women, Race Matters. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis

Goldberg, Susan B. & Cameron Levin (2002) “Toward a radical white identity.” [Electronic version].           http://aware.revolt.org/radicalwhiteidentity.htm (Retrieved November 2007)

McIntosh, Peggy, (1990) “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/Unpacking.html (Retrieved, November 2007)

Samara, T. R., and Grace Chang. (July/August 2007) “Gentrifying Downtown.” Colorlines. http://colorlines.com/article.php?ID=229&limit=750&limit2=1500&page=2

Sharp, S. Pearl. “Becoming AWARE of White Views on Race.” National Public Radio Online. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5473682

Sullivan, Shannon (2006) Revealing Whiteness: The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 

Crystallee Rene Crain, is a Ph.D. student in Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies.  She is also an Associate Fellow with the Transformative Studies Institute. She holds a bachelors degree in Political Science and a Masters of Arts in Social Sciences. She is current a Visiting Faculty Member at Lake Superior State University in the Social Sciences Division. Her areas of interest and current research concerns are race relations, social justice and activism as well as empowering marginalized communities.  Address correspondence to: Crystallee Rene Crain; e-mail: crystallee.crain@gmail.com.

DOI:10.3798/tia.1937-0237.09009

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